Greenwich Village - Grid Plan

Grid Plan

As Greenwich Village was once a rural hamlet, to the north of the 17th century European settlement on Manhattan Island, its street layout is more haphazard than the grid pattern of the 19th-century grid plan (based on the Commissioners' Plan of 1811). Greenwich Village was allowed to keep the 18th century street pattern of what is now the West Village: areas west of the 18th century Greenwich Lane (now Greenwich Avenue) and the early 20th century Sixth Avenue, which were already built up when the plan was implemented, resulting in a neighborhood whose streets are dramatically different, in layout, from the ordered structure of newer parts of town. Many of the neighborhood's streets are narrow and some curve at odd angles.

Unlike streets of most of Manhattan above Houston Street, streets in the Village typically are named rather than numbered. While some of the formerly named streets (including Factory, Herring and Amity Streets) are now numbered, even they do not always conform to the usual grid pattern when they enter the neighborhood. For example, West 4th Street, which runs east-west outside of the Village, turns and runs north, causing it to intersect with West 10th, 11th, 12th, and ending at West 13th Street.

A large section of Greenwich Village, made up of more than 50 northern and western blocks in the area up to 14th Street, is part of a Historic District established by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. The District's convoluted borders run no farther south than 4th Street or St. Luke's Place, and no farther east than Washington Square East or University Place. Redevelopment in that area is severely restricted, and developers must preserve the main facade and aesthetics of the buildings even during renovation.

Most parts of Greenwich Village comprise mid-rise apartments, 19th-century row houses and the occasional one-family walk-up, a sharp contrast to the hi-rise landscape in Mid- and Downtown Manhattan.